10.  By contracts signed in 1994, in respect of donations inter vivos, the applicants became the owners of five plots of land on the island of Kundziņsala. This island, situated close to the mouth of the Daugava River, is part of the city of Riga, to which it is connected by a road bridge and a railway line. It mainly consists of port facilities, with a small residential area in its southern part.
11.  The first applicant acquired a plot of land of 17,998 sq. m under a contract of donation with Mrs P. dated 21 April 1994. The transfer of title was entered in the land register by the Land Registry Division of the city of Riga (Rīgas pilsētas Zemesgrāmatu nodaļa) on 26 July 1994. The second applicant became the owner of:
(a)  a plot of land measuring 11,000 sq. m, under a contract of donation with Mrs J. dated 21 April 1994 (entered in the land register on the same day);
(b)  a plot of land measuring 7,150 sq. m, under a contract of donation with Mr O. dated 21 April 1994 (entered in the land register on the same day);
(c)  a plot of land measuring 10,970 sq. m, under a contract of donation with the same Mr O. dated 12 September 1994 (entered in the land register on the next day, 13 September 1994); and
(d)  a plot of land measuring 18,620 sq. m, under a contract of donation with Mrs D. dated 28 June 1994 (entered in the land register on the same day).
12.  The clauses of the contracts in question were practically identical. The contract entered into by the first applicant stipulated that the second applicant was acting as the donor’s representative. Similarly, it was stated in the first three contracts entered into by the second applicant (see points (a), (b) and (c) of the previous paragraph) that the first applicant was acting on behalf of the donors.
13.  The donors were all the heirs of the legitimate owners of the land in question, which had been expropriated by the Soviet Union after 1940. They had recovered ownership in the context of the “denationalisation” process in the early 1990s. According to the applicants’ explanations, which were not contested by the Government, the donations had been made in return for certain personal services that the applicants had rendered to the donors. Mrs D. had thus given her land to the second applicant by way of remuneration for having helped her to complete the formalities to obtain restitution of her nineteen properties located throughout Latvia. Mrs J. had apparently been a longstanding friend of the second applicant, whilst the donor of the other two plots, Mr O., had given them to him as a token of gratitude because he had covered the cost of expensive heart surgery. As to the first applicant, he had become the owner of his land in return for undisclosed services rendered.
14.  Each of the above-mentioned contracts stipulated that the value of the plots of land in question was fixed at 500 Latvian lati (LVL; about 705 euros (EUR)), except for the plot of 10,970 sq. m, which was valued at LVL 1,000 (about EUR 1,410). The parties agreed that the said value was not the cadastral value of the land in question (that is to say, the reference value for the calculation of land tax), but an indicative sum solely for the purposes of calculating the registration tax, which at the time represented 10% of the property’s value. Indeed, according to the applicants’ explanations, which have not been challenged by the Government, cadastral values did not exist at the relevant time and the sole basis of calculation for the tax was the property’s sale price, in accordance with the applicable law (see paragraph 64 below).
15.  In addition, the applicants paid LVL 0.25 in notary’s tax. However, they were not obliged to pay income tax in respect of the transactions, as gifts between individuals were not liable for such tax. Furthermore, in accordance with the law applicable at the time (see paragraph 63 below), they were exempted from the payment of land tax (zemes nodoklis) for a period of six months following the acquisition, that is to say, until the end of 1994.
16.  The parties disagreed as to the actual value of the plots of land in question at the time of their expropriation. The Government explained that the use of the land had begun during the Soviet era, in 1980, at the time of the construction of the port infrastructure – storage containers and open-air freight platforms – which can be found there today. In their submission, those port facilities are outside the general property market, with the result that an estimation of their possible market value would be impossible and devoid of purpose.
17.  In the applicants’ submission, the five plots of land contained no infrastructure except for concrete blocks. They explained that the latter enabled the land to be used for the storage of shipping containers, but that no other equipment such as railway lines, cranes or warehouses had been installed there. Inventory records of three of the plots of land, to which the applicants referred, indicate that the value of these concrete blocks is LVL 5.28 per square metre.
18.  According to the statistical information supplied by the Government, and accepted as accurate by the applicants, 89% of specialised container traffic in and out of Latvia by sea in 1996 passed through the part of the island where the land at issue is located. Nor have the applicants disputed the fact that the first decisions concerning the port area of Kundziņsala were taken during the constitutional transition period, between 1990 and 1991, by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia (the then legislative assembly). In 1992 the authorities initiated proceedings for the purpose of fixing the port’s boundaries and determining the infrastructure to be transferred from the former Soviet Union to the independent Latvian State.
19.  On 15 August 1995 the Latvian Cabinet adopted Regulation no. 278 fixing the perimeter of the Port of Riga (Noteikumi par Rīgas ostas robežu noteikšanu). In accordance with that Regulation, all the plots of land owned by the applicants were included within the port’s perimeter. That inclusion was confirmed by the Free Commercial Port of Riga Act (Rīgas tirdzniecības brīvostas likums), enacted on 6 November 1996. Under that Act, all the privately owned land situated within the port’s boundaries became subject to a servitude for the benefit of the public corporation responsible for the port’s management. In return, the corporation was to pay the owners annual compensation of not more than 5% of the cadastral value of the plots of land in question.
20.  In January 1996 the applicants requested the Real Estate Valuation Centre of the State Land Authority (Valsts Zemes dienesta Nekustamā īpašuma vērtēšanas centrs) to determine the cadastral value of their respective plots of land for the year 1996. In five letters of 15 January 1996, the Centre certified that the value amounted to LVL 564,410 (about EUR 900,000) for the land belonging to Mr Vistiņš; as to that of Mr Perepjolkins, the cadastral value of the various plots amounted to LVL 285,830, LVL 767,724, LVL 769,824 and LVL 1,303,102 respectively, representing a total of LVL 3,126,480 (about EUR 5,010,000).
21.  On 11 June 1997 the administration of the Free Commercial Port of Riga applied, in turn, to the Valuation Centre, requesting it to calculate the amount of compensation that would have to be paid to the applicants in the event of expropriation of their land, in accordance with Article 2 of the Supreme Council’s decision on the conditions of entry into force of the Law on the expropriation of real estate in the public interest (the “General Expropriation Act”, enacted in 1923). That Article – which was applicable inter alia to the applicants – limited the amount of the compensation to be paid to the owners of certain land that was to be expropriated; the compensation could not exceed the cadastral value of the land as fixed on 22 July 1940, multiplied by a conversion coefficient.
22.  On 12 June 1997 the Centre issued two certificates stating that the first applicant would receive LVL 548.26 (about EUR 850) for his 17,998 sq. m plot of land, and the second LVL 8,616.87 (about EUR 13,500) for his plots of land, of which the total surface area came to 47,740 sq. m.
23.  By Regulation no. 273 of 5 August 1997, which was adopted in the context of delegated legislative authority (see paragraph 41 below) and which entered into force on 9 September 1997, the Cabinet ordered the expropriation of all the land in question for the benefit of the State. On 30 October 1997 the measure was confirmed by Parliament, which enacted a special law for that purpose (see paragraph 54 below). Under that law Mr Vistiņš and Mr Perepjolkins were to be paid compensation for the expropriation, which would be deemed completed once the sums had been paid into their current accounts.
24.  On 8 May 1998 the Latvian Land and Mortgage Bank (Latvijas Hipotēku un zemes banka) opened current accounts in the names of each of the applicants. On 14 October 1998 the bank officially certified that the above-mentioned sums of LVL 548.26 and LVL 8,616.87, awarded to the applicants by way of compensation, had actually been paid into the two accounts. The applicants, however, refused to make use of those sums in any way. Following the payments, by two orders of 17 and 20 November 1998 the Riga Land Registry Court (zemesgrāmatu tiesnesis) ordered that the title to the expropriated land be registered in the name of the State. No tax was levied on the above-mentioned sums.
25.  In 1998 the second applicant brought two sets of proceedings to obtain rent arrears for the use of his land. In the first set of proceedings, against the Riga Port Authority and the Free Commercial Port of Riga, he requested the payment of sums due under the lease for the period from 21 April 1994 to 31 March 1996. In a judgment of 15 October 1998, upheld in cassation proceedings on 6 January 1999, the Riga Regional Court ordered the Free Port to pay the second applicant LVL 278,175 (about EUR 448,150) for the use of his land during the period in question.
26.  The second applicant subsequently filed a new claim against the Free Port, seeking the payment of rent arrears for the period after 1 April 1996, together with compensation for the servitude imposed on his property. On 18 March 1999 the Civil Division of the Supreme Court partly upheld his claim, awarding the applicant the sum of LVL 90,146.84 (about EUR 145,000) on that basis, after fixing the amount of the rent at 2% of the cadastral value of the land at the material time. In fixing that amount the Civil Division particularly took into account the fact that the second applicant had not invested in any development of the land in question. It further indicated that the applicant’s title to the property had ceased on 9 September 1997, when the expropriation had become effective. In a judgment of 12 May 1999 the Senate of the Supreme Court upheld the judgment of the Civil Division.
27.  The first applicant, Mr Vistiņš, brought similar proceedings. In a judgment of 9 June 1999 the Civil Division ordered the Free Port to pay him LVL 53,036 (about EUR 85,000) in rent arrears for the period from 1994 to 1997.
28.  In January 1999 the applicants sued the Transport Ministry (Satiksmes ministrija) before the Riga Regional Court. In their pleadings they requested the annulment of the cadastral registration of the State’s title, and the restoration, in the land registers, of the previous entries attesting to their ownership of the land in question.
29.  In support of their claim, the applicants alleged that the General Expropriation Act provided for a uniform procedure which had not been observed in their case. According to that procedure, after the enactment of the special Law of 30 October 1997, the Transport Ministry was required first to start negotiations with them with a view to reaching a friendly settlement as to the amount of the compensation (section 5 of the General Expropriation Act); if those negotiations failed, the Ministry would have to refer the matter to the competent court for settlement of the dispute (section 9). The applicants particularly emphasised that they were not satisfied with the sums paid by way of compensation and that they were deprived of their right to challenge those sums before a court. In this connection, the applicants pointed out that the orders of the Land Registry Court had been made in the absence of any prior final judgment concerning the amount of the compensation; they thus argued that the orders did not comply with section 18 of the General Expropriation Act. The applicants submitted that the expropriation in general and the transfer of title in particular had been carried out in breach of that Act, thus directly entailing a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
30.  In a judgment of 29 March 2000 the Regional Court dismissed the applicants’ claims. According to the judgment, the expropriation was not based on the General Expropriation Act, as the applicants had claimed, since the measure in question had been decreed in the context of the Latvian land reform, and thus the special Law of 30 October 1997 was to be applied. Section 4 of the special Law provided that the mere existence of the law and the payment of compensation for the expropriation sufficed for the statutory transfer of title to the State. Noting in the present case that the corresponding sums had been paid into the applicants’ accounts, the Regional Court found that both of those elements were present, and that by registering the State as the new owner of the land in question, the Land Registry Court had acted in accordance with the law.
31.  Moreover, the Regional Court pointed out that section 3(1) of the Law of 30 October 1997 (on the calculation of compensation) referred to Article 2 of the Supreme Council’s decision on the conditions of entry into force of the General Expropriation Act and that this decision had been declared compliant with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 by the Constitutional Court.
32.  The applicants appealed before the Civil Division of the Supreme Court. They emphasised at the outset that they did not object to the expropriation as such, provided the statutory formalities were observed and the amount of the compensation was reasonable. In their view, this had not been the case, as, in particular, no expert’s report had been ordered for the purpose of determining the actual value of the disputed land (section 16 of the General Expropriation Act). The applicants did not challenge the Regional Court’s finding that the Law of 30 October 1997 constituted a lex specialis in relation to the general law; they argued, however, that the said law could not be construed as derogating from the normal expropriation procedure and that, consequently, by recognising the State’s title without having received a copy of a judgment determining the amount of the compensation, the Land Registry Court had acted illegally.
33.  In a judgment of 28 September 2000 the Civil Division dismissed the applicants’ appeal, essentially endorsing the reasoning and findings of the judgment in question. Addressing the applicants’ objection to the compensation awarded, it pointed out that the amounts had been determined in accordance with Article 2 of the above-mentioned Supreme Council decision. If the applicants had considered that the calculation by the State’s Land Authority had been erroneous and that the relevant coefficients had been incorrectly applied, they could have challenged the calculation in separate proceedings, but they had not done so.
34.  The applicants lodged a cassation appeal with the Senate of the Supreme Court. In their appeal, they submitted that the direct and immediate object of their claim was not to challenge the calculation of the compensation as such, but rather the fact that they had not been able to have the amount fixed through fair judicial proceedings, as required by the General Expropriation Act. If such proceedings had taken place, they would have been able to provide the court with evidence of their investments in respect of the land in question; they pointed out that they were not entitled to initiate such proceedings themselves, as section 9 of the Act reserved that right for the State authorities.
35.  In a judgment of 20 December 2000 the Senate dismissed the applicants’ appeal on the same grounds as the Civil Division.
36.  In the meantime, on 17 August 2000, the State had granted the use of all the plots of land in question to a private transport company, B., from which it has been receiving rent to date.
37.  On 9 December 1999 the Finance Department of the Riga City Council notified the first applicant of a tax reassessment, requesting him to pay the sum of LVL 18,891 in land tax in respect of the land that had belonged to him, plus penalties, for the period from 1 January 1997 to 30 October 1997, the date of the expropriation. The first applicant challenged this before the Ziemeļu District Court of First Instance, which upheld his claim and annulled the reassessment. The City Council appealed before the Riga Regional Court, which, in a judgment of 10 January 2003, upheld the annulment of the reassessment. In its judgment the court found that, as the land tax was attached to a plot of land and not to a specific individual, it could be paid by someone other than the owner. It noted that the tax had already been paid by the public corporation responsible for the port’s management which was using the land on the basis of a servitude. The City Council lodged a cassation appeal with the Senate of the Supreme Court, which dismissed that appeal in a judgment of 19 March 2003.
38.  On 22 January 1999 the Finance Department of Riga City Council notified the second applicant of a tax reassessment for LVL 78,382, including penalties, for the year 1997. The applicant brought annulment proceedings before the court of competent jurisdiction, which upheld his claim. The City Council appealed and on 26 February 2002 the Riga Regional Court annulled the judgment of the Court of First Instance, finding that the second applicant’s land was not part of that for which the public corporation had paid land tax. That judgment was upheld in cassation proceedings. However, in September 2003 the Senate of the Supreme Court reopened the proceedings on account of newly discovered facts. The case file was sent to the Administrative Court of Appeal, which, in a judgment of 15 July 2005, upheld the second applicant’s claim and annulled the disputed reassessment on the ground that the port management company had already paid land tax for the land in question. On 7 February 2006 the Senate of the Supreme Court, ruling on a cassation appeal, upheld that judgment, so the second applicant was not obliged to pay any supplementary tax on the land in question.